Nobody cared about Trump's North Korea summit while Michael Cohen was testifying

(Image credit: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)

published 28 February 2019

Michael Cohen, President Trump's lawyer and fixer for about a decade, wasn't necessarily a household name before he testified publicly before the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday. One of the Republicans openly skeptical of his truthfulness, Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.), said he didn't even really know who Cohen was before Wednesday's hearings.

It's possible that despite all the headlines Cohen has featured in over the past two years — few of them positive — Higgins may not be that much of an anomaly. People were certainly interested in Michael Cohen on Wednesday, though, as Google's search results show — at least compared with Trump's North Korea denuclearization summit in Hanoi, as The Washington Post's Philip Bump thought to explore.

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Trump did get a bit of a bump when his summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un abruptly ended without a deal on Thursday and during the 40-minute press conference Trump held afterward, but Cohen still stayed aloft. Trump complained about Cohen's high-profiling hearing during that news conference: "I think having a fake hearing like that, and having it in the middle of this very important summit, is really a terrible thing. They could have made it two days later, or next week, and it would have been even better." But Trump, who famously enjoys the spotlight and fixates on ratings, can take solace in the fact that after being personally eclipse by his former right-hand man for most of Wednesday, he's back on top Thursday. Peter Weber

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.